


Finding What You're Looking for in a Hydra Cell

by ChandaK562



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Eventual Happy Ending, Evil Ward, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Ward is Awful, Ward is HYDRA
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-11 01:55:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 12
Words: 19,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5609479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChandaK562/pseuds/ChandaK562
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Isabelle Hartley wakes up after the Creel caused car crash in a Hydra cell, with a certain senior agent in the cell beside her.  Can the two find something they've never known even while being held captive and tortured by Hydra?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When she got out of here, if she got out of here, she was going to kill Robert Gonzales for his oh so brilliant plan of infiltrating Coulson's Shield. That was Isabelle's first thought as her eyes opened to blinding pains shooting down her arm, or where her arm used to be, anyway.. She closed her eyes for a moment, fighting hard, trying to slow her breathing and bring the pain under some sort of control. Pain, she didn't have time for pain. She needed to remember what happened.

Coulson. Military base. He had sent her people and pretty much every field agent he had on hand onto a military base in search of the 084 that Hydra was after. She forced her eyes open, forced herself to try to breathe through the pain as she tried to pull her memories together. Found the 084. She remembered finding the 084, and then she remembered stupidly opening the 084 container because Gonzales had wanted to know everything about Coulson's operations and the kinds of things he was looking for. Stupid, stupid, stupid, and that was before she even thought about her actually picking up the 084 with bare hands. The entire thing infiltrating Coulson's operation was insane and how in the world had she ever agreed to go along with it? When she got out of here, she had to contact Bobbi, had to have a talk with Mac, had to convince them that they were making a big mistake. Gonzales was wasting all of his time focusing on Coulson, was holding back resources that could be used for stopping Hydra and for what? The entire thing made no sense and she wasn't sure how she hadn't seen that it hadn't before. Maybe having her arm cut off in the back of a car was good for at least one thing, anyway, bringing her to her senses. Her arm. Touching that thing and what it did to her arm, the pain so bad that she hadn't been able to argue with Hunter when he drug her out of there, hadn't been able to argue with him that she was sure that Coulson had a plan for pulling his people out that wasn't the cars they came in there in.

Okay, arm, the car and Hunter cutting her arm off. She remembered that. That was good. The car. Creel was there in front of the car. A crash. The car had crashed. She thought she remembered that, anyway, but her memories after stupidly touching that thing were blurred in a haze of firy agony. She thought a crash was right, though, and more pain shooting through her, pain and shock so bad she wasn't sure if she had passed out for a bit or been frozen in place by agony.

The car crashed. The car crashed and somehow she had ended up captured by Hydra in the aftermath. Hydra. If they had her did they have…. She had a bad feeling about Idaho, but Hunter, she had some dim memory, foggy from pain, of hearing him in the car in the aftermath of the crash. She shook her head, which caused its own pain, but at least let her focus a little. Hunter. She had heard Hunter, she was sure of that. She had hear him but she had been too dazed and painstricken to call for him. She had heard Hunter and…. May. She had heard May there, and she suddenly had hope that Hunter might be safe but how had she been taken prisoner? As much as Hunter tried to play at being the uncaring mercenary, she would trust him with her life, and knew he wouldn't just abandon her to save himself. But maybe…. She had been hurt, and Coulson's medical assets had been stretched almost to their limits. Maybe Hunter and May had decided that leaving her there, where Talbot's people would capture her quickly was her best chance for getting the help that she needed? A workable idea, but apparently Shield wasn't the only thing that Hydra had infiltrated because she was in their clutches after she assumed Talbot's people had captured her.

There was no light in the cell she was in, only a tiny glimmer coming in from under the door that didn't offer her nearly enough light to offer her any help in assessing her position and hopefully finding some sort of tool she could use to get out of it. She pulled herself into a sitting position, despite the pain that shot down her missing arm with the movement. She cautiously felt around with her good hand. Her back was to some sort of stone wall, no blanket or bed, at least not where she had been lying. No light meant no bulb she could break for shards of glass to use as knives. Not good, she had been in worse situations, of course, but this was the first time that she had a missing hand on top of an awful situation to deal with. If she could just get control of the pain, if she could focus through it, surely she could figure out some way to get out of here, though.

As she struggled, trying to force herself to focus, Isabelle suddenly noticed something, a noise from the other side of the wall. a soft moaning.

"Hey! Hey!" Isabelle called as she turned and pounded on the wall with her good hand, even though the movement caused her almost blinding pain. "Is someone there?"

"Who…. Who are you?" A woman's voice called back a few moments later, pain dripping from every word.

"Isabelle. My name's Isabelle. Isabelle Hartley." Isabelle called.

"Victoria Hand." Victoria called as she tried to find a position on the floor that didn't cause more pain to her battered ribs and throbbing wrist.

"Hand? You're Shield, right?" Isabelle called. "Coulson mentioned you. He thought you were dead. What happened?"

"You're one of Coulson's people?" Victoria called.

"Sort of. It's a little complicated, but yeah, I'm with him." Isabelle called back, realizing that it was true. From the short time she had worked with him she had liked Coulson, she had liked his people, and maybe the situation wasn't perfect and there could be improvements, but what Gonzales was planning was an absolutely terrible idea that she was getting herself, Bobbi and Mack out of the second she got out of here. Well maybe she would get them out of it after she got out of there and got a few painkillers for her arm. As bad as Gonzales' plan was, it could probably wait a few minutes until she got some painkillers, she was sure. "What happened to you? How did Hydra get you? This is Hydra and not a really ticked off Glenn Talbott, right?"

"Definitely Hydra. Ward shot me, but luckily," or maybe it was unlucky, she silently thought as she tried to move and let out a moan as pain washed over her from the attempt. "Luckily, they decided that I had more value alive for intelligence. They had someone patch me up, and then handed me off to one of the other heads for intelligence gathering." She moaned again at the throbbing in her ribs. "How long? How long has it been?"

"Six months, maybe?" Isabelle told her. "How bad is it?"

"Broken ribs, fractured wrist, I think." Victoria said. "It's been worse." Six months. She felt a tear slip down her cheek thinking of it. "How bad? We lost the Fridge, didn't we?" The Fridge. The Fridge was totally her fault. She should have just shot John Garrett as soon as they captured him. Surely Coulson would have understood under the circumstances. The Fridge, and all of the good people who had been there, and all of those criminals let loose on a world that wasn't ready to face them…. "How bad? Did they get Garrett? And Ward?"

"Garrett's dead. They have Ward locked up in the basement, wanting to see what intelligence they can get from him. Not that he's been very cooperative so far, from what I've been able to tell." Isabelle told her. "He did a number on Coulson's people. Dumped the two scientists into the middle of the ocean in a medpod and almost drowned them, kidnapped the little hacker once and then tried again and threatened to rape her. I would have just shot him. Anything that he gives them, if he ever actually does hand something over isn't going to be something I would trust. He's got sociopathic tendencies at best, if he isn't a full blown sociopath."

"Should have just shot Garrett." Victoria murmured, and then let out a scream of pain as she coughed and agony shot through her ribs.

"Hey! hey, it's okay. It's okay. Listen, you just stay quiet right now, okay? Don't try to talk. It'll just make your ribs worse. You just rest for now, okay? Rest and try to get some strength, because we're going to figure a way out of here, I promise."

"A way out?" Victoria whispered, for the first time a flutter of hope washing over her along with the pain.

"We're getting out, I promise, and Coulson's going to be absolutely thrilled to get you back" How they were getting out she didn't know. She was hurt and Victoria was hurt. Somehow, they were going to get out of here, though.

"He didn't forget?" That was one thing that she hadn't anticipated would bother her, the thought of being forgotten, but it had. Shield had been her life for so long. She hadn't expected this feeling but she wanted the organization she had devoted herself to to remember her.

"They remember. And they'll be thrilled to get you back. Just rest, okay?" Isabelle told her. Broken ribs. She really didn't want Victoria moving around too much and risking one of those ribs puncturing her lung. "We're going to get out of here, I promise." She didn't know how, but they were going to get out of there somehow.


	2. Chapter 2

"Isabelle?" Victoria called tentatively once again. She thought she had passed out at some point from the pain, curled next to the wall that separated the two, or at least she thought that there had been someone on the other side of the wall, someone who talked to her and promised they were going to somehow get out of there, but now with each time that she called for what she had hoped would be a new friend without receiving a response, she was afraid she had dreamed the entire thing, that she was losing her mind.

No, she wouldn't let herself believe that she was that far gone yet. She opened her mouth to call for Isabelle once more when she heard a noise in the cell next to her, the door opening and what sounded like something being drug in and dumped onto the floor.

"Isabelle?" As soon as she heard the cell door close, she rapped on the wall as strongly as she could with her good hand. "Isabelle?!"

There was a moan in response and even though the thought of her new friend being in pain was terrible to imagine, Victoria sighed slightly in relief. At least she hadn't been hallucinating her. Isabelle was real and from the sound of things it looked like Hydra had done some real damage to her. "Isabelle?"

It felt like the a hot poker was being jammed into the stump of her arm, and Isabelle could barely breathe from the pain. She wasn't sure how long she had been there, fastened to that table as her arm was prodded, as samples were taken and as the Hydra scientists did who knows what to her. After the first sampling, she had been lost in a fog of agony that had taken away all sense of time. It could have been minutes or honestly, it could have been weeks before they were through with her and she was returned to her cell, the bandages covering the stump stained with blood. Blood, was that bad? She had a feeling it was pretty bad.

"Isabelle?" Victoria called for her again, and Isabelle let out another moan as she struggled to make herself focus enough to respond to the other woman.

A moan. A moan wasn't good, but at least moaning meant Isabelle was definitely in the cell. "Isabelle?" Victoria rapped on the wall again. "What happened? What did they do to you?" Was Hydra looking for information on whatever Coulson was up to? Victoria cringed at the thought of the possible friend who had suddenly given her a bit of hope going through what she had for the last…. Had it really been six months? "Isabelle?"

"Okay." Isabelle tried to force herself up but she couldn't quite manage it, so she settled for pressing herself against the wall. At least the wall was cool and took away some of the burning feeling washing over her body. "It's okay, Vic. I'm here."

Vic. Victoria had hated it when John Garrett had called her that but somehow, hearing Isabelle say it, the nickname didn't seem so bad after all. "What happened?" She called to her. "How bad is it?"

"It hurts a lot." Isabelle said. "Hurts a whole lot. I made the mistake of touching an 084. Bad idea. Truly, spectacularly bad idea. Ended up having to have part of my arm cut off in the back seat of a car, which I would not recommend, and now Hydra seems like they're interested in whatever I touched. They were prodding and experimenting on what's left. Not sure what they thought they might find but apparently they think they're something there."

Victoria winced and then let out a moan herself as a wave of pain from her injured ribs washed over her.

"Vic? Hey, are you okay? They didn't come back for you, did they, while I was gone?"

"Too soon. They want me awake. They come too soon, all that they'll get is me passing out from the pain. How bad is it?" Victoria asked her.

"Feels like it's on fire." Isabelle cautiously felt the bandages with her good hand. Wet, but not like it would be if there was major bleeding. That was slightly better than she had been thinking. "Bleeding, but it's not too bad. Just give me a few minutes, okay? Few minutes to get it under control."

"You should lay down." Victoria called to her. Her arm feeling like it was on fire. What if an infection was starting? Would Hydra bother with providing treatment for an infection? But Isabelle had said they were doing some sort of medical experiments. Surely that meant they would do what was necessary to keep her alive. Of course they would, she told herself even as she fought back worry.

"Might be a good idea." Isabelle said, sliding down the wall and curling up next to it even though she knew that she needed to be trying to get to her feet, trying to make some sort of plan to get herself and the other woman out of there.. Cool. at least the wall was cool, though, and surely it couldn't hurt to rest for a few minutes. "You should probably lay down too. How bad are your ribs?"

"They've been worse." But only a bit worse. Victoria let out a moan as she settled down, her body pressed against the wall. "You touched an 084 barehanded? I can only assume it was barehanded. Why did you do something like that?"

She couldn't tell her about Gonzales and his crazy idea of infiltrating Coulson's group. Victoria was being tortured for information already. If she gave her such a major new piece of information and Hydra guessed she knew something new, it would only make whatever they were doing to her worse. Better for her to think she was just an idiot than to risk doing something that might get her hurt. And really, right now she was feeling like an idiot for going along with this to begin with. "I think I might have been hanging around Hunter too long. Some of the stupid ideas seem to be rubbing off on me."

"Hunter?"

"Lance Hunter. British, former SAS, if you've ever met Bobbi Morse, you've probably heard her talk about him." Hunter, when he heard about this, and that she and Bobbi had gone along with it, she was never going to hear the end of it, and of him reminding her of how she said he made stupid plans and here she had done something that topped all of them put together.

"The ex-husband? I think everyone has." Victoria murmured. "Isn't he a mercenary? Are you…."

"I was working for Shield when Hydra came out, and I decided to stick around. Thought all of you could use all of the help you could get." The pain seemed a bit easier to manage lying down. Definitely a good suggestion on Vic's part. "Okay." She forced herself to try to think. "Do they feed us in here?" Not that she was in any shape to try jumping someone at the moment, but getting an idea of the schedule could only help.

"I'm not sure of the time." Victoria said after a moment's thought "It's hard to keep track. Maybe a couple of days between food? They brought me something a few hours before they took me for interrogation."

A few days between meals, not good. Between pain and hunger what she could do would be severely limited. "Who brings it? Is there any chance…."

"Gun and a taser." Victoria told her. "No utensils, nothing that I've been able to find a way to break to make a weapon."

Not good. Definitely not good, but there had to be something. Her head was swimming from the pain and exhaustion from even the short period where she had tried to fight the pain. Maybe she would be able to think of something if she closed her eyes for a minute. "I'll come up with something, Vic, I promise. We're going to get out of here, okay?"

Hearing the pain in Isabelle's voice, Victoria wasn't sure how in the world that was going to happen, but she wanted to believe it so badly. "Can you talk, just for a few minutes?" She asked after a moment of silence.

All she wanted to do was sleep and hope to get some strength back, but Victoria had been alone in a cell for six months and the least she could do would be to give her a few minutes of a friendly voice.

"Hey, you know the soulmate thing?" It was probably too personal a question to ask, but maybe it would bring up some happy memory for Victoria? "Di you have one?"

"I have a mark." Victoria said. "But finding her, that never happened. Working with Shield, it makes it hard to look. I keep thinking that somehow she would just be there. My grandparents had it happen like that, but it never did for me."

"Me either." Isabelle said "Your grandparents had a mark? I think I'm the only person I've ever heard of in my family who had one." The only person in the family who was marked, and she couldn't find her soulmate. How sad was that? "We get out of here, what do you say we go and look for them? They've got to be out there somewhere, right, and surviving what Hydra's doing, we deserve a happy ending."

A happy ending. Victoria smiled slightly at that thought even though Isabelle couldn't see her. "I want to find her." Someone who would love her, who would understand her, Victoria had resigned herself to the thought that she would be alone forever, that she would never find her soulmate and she had to be okay with that, but that didn't mean she still didn't wish with all of her heart it would happen.

"We will. We'll find both of our soulmates, okay?" Isabelle told her. "You just hold on to that and think about where you want to start looking first. I'm going to rest few a few minutes and then we're going to make a plan for getting out of here. It's going to be okay, Vic, I promise."


	3. Chapter 3

"Vic?" Isabelle called for the other woman as soon as the door slammed shut and the footsteps in the hallway outside had faded away. She had fallen asleep, it could have been the night before or as much pain as she had been in, it could have been way longer. But she had woke up to the pain having eased, and the door to her cell opening, men grabbing her and dragging her out for another round of experiments before she could even think of resisting. At least the pain had been less this time, and she felt halfway functional, and not about to pass out, though, one small miracle. And there was something on the floor, she could tell in the dim light, a couple of foil packets, one holding some sort of liquid and the other with something that felt like some sort of wrap. Food. She didn't care if it was more disgusting than some of Hunter's attempts at cooking. There was finally food, and it hit her like a knife how hungry she was. She tore the packet open and bit into the wrap. Meat, beans and some sort of cheese and it was matching some of Hunter's attempts and cooking, but it was food.

She wanted to swallow it whole, but then it hit her that she hadn't heard a reply from the next cell. "Vic?" She put the wrap down as carefully as possible, not wanting to risk spilling any of the valuable food and pressed herself against the wall, knocking on it with her good hand. "Vic!"

At first there was no answer, but then finally, so faint that she could barely hear it, there was a weak moan.

Moaning, not good, but at least it meant that the other woman was in there. But how badly was she injured? "Vic?" Isabelle called for her again, forgetting the food entirely. "Vic, I'm right here, okay? How bad is it?"

It hurt. Everything hurt, every sound she made a stabbing pain. Victoria curled tightly into a ball, pressed against the wall, moaning again as she moved. They had came for her before she had had time to prepare, and it seemed that the damage they had done had been worse this time, although she wasn't sure if it actually was or if the two sessions so close together had just made it feel like it was worse.

"Vic?" Isabelle called her name again, fear obvious in her voice. How bad was the other woman injured? "Vic, can you talk to me? Please?"

"Jaw." Victoria got the word out, and felt like she was about to pass out from the resulting bolt of pain shooting through her face.

A broken or damaged jaw. Not good. Definitely not good. And then something else hit her, and added to her worries. Victoria had said the last time she was fed was before they interrogated her the first time, before Isabelle had woke up in the cell next to her. That had been a couple of days ago at the least. She had to be starting to get dehydrated. "Vic?" She called for her. "When I got tossed back into my cell, there were some foil packets, food and I think it's probably water in the other one. Is there anything like that in there with you?"

She just wanted to curl up until she passed out from the pain, but Victoria forced herself to move, carefully stretching out her hands and feeling around, pain shooting through her ribs at the movement. Finally she felt the packets, though, one that she knew from experience contained water, and the other with what felt like bread, and maybe a bit of cheese. She wasn't sure what good it would do her to find food, though. She was in no condition to eat.

"Bread. Water. I can't….."

Bread and water. They were just giving Vic something like that? The wrap they had left her had at least had some sort of meat in it, and beans, and Isabelle wished with all her might that she could figure a way find an opening into Victoria's cell, so she could get some of that food into her. She needed that protein. But she forced herself to forget the food for now. The water was more important. "Vic, can you get the water open? I need you to try to take a few sips of it for me, okay?"

"Hurts." Victoria whispered.

"I know. I know it does. But we've got to get some fluids into you or you're going to get really sick. Just a sip. Can you take just a sip of the water for now?"

Again, she thought about how all she wanted to do was curl up and hope to pass out, but she knew what Isabelle was urging her to do was the correct thing. She moved slowly, moaning as the movement jarred her jaw, her ribs and then her wrist as she had to somehow used her still throbbing hand and arm to hold the packet of water steady while she opened it and brought it to her lips, letting a tiny amount trickle down her throat. When the liquid hit her stomach, it was all she could do to keep from throwing up, and she moaned again.

"Vic, hey, it's okay. You haven't had anything in at least a few days. Just take it slow, okay?" Isabelle called to her. "Rest for a few minutes now, and then we can try a little more. It's going to be okay, Vic."

"Took you. Hurt you too?" Victoria whispered.

"Not as bad as the last time, anyway." Isabelle reassured her. As she spoke she made herself pick up the wrap and take another bite of it. As much as she hated eating when Victoria couldn't, when she had something so much better than what her new friend had, she needed to keep her strength up. There had to be a way to get out of here, and she needed to be ready to take it when she finally spotted the opportunity. And she needed to make sure that Victoria was ready too, which meant getting at least some fluids into her, and keeping her spirits up.

"Hey, I told you about Hunter, right?" Isabelle called. "At some point, he's going to figure out that I'm not where I should be, and he's going to start looking for me." And Hunter, as soon as he realized that she was missing, would try to contact Bobbi to tell her. No matter how much the pair were currently arguing, there was no way Hunter wouldn't let her know, and Isabelle had a feeling the undercover assignment Bobbi had talked to her about was within Hydra. If Hunter contacted her, it just might get Bobbi to looking for her, and then they both could get out of there. "Not that I'm thinking we should wait around like a couple of damsels in distress, but if worst comes to worst, help should show up eventually. Think you can take another sip of the water?"

Moving hurt, but at least she didn't feel like throwing up so much this time. She was able to get a little more of the water down, before she had to stop. "How long?" She asked.

"How long until Hunter comes looking for me? I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure that he left me because I needed medical attention for the cut off arm thing, and Talbott was the quickest option for getting it, even if it did mean getting caught and locked up. He's not going to try breaking me out until he thinks I would be healed enough to move." She drank some of the water herself as she thought. Coulson's medical staff were stretched to their limits at the moment, which would make leaving her in Talbott's custody for as long as possible to get her injuries tended an extremely viable option. "At least a week, maybe longer, and then it's probably going to take some time when Hunter starts looking for him to figure out that Talbott hasn't got me stashed away in some Black Ops, off the books site. Two, three weeks at least, probably, plus however long it takes him to figure out where they've got us stashed. Like I said, we probably shouldn't wait around planning to do the damsel in distress thing. Try to drink some more, okay?"

"Coulson will let him come?" Victoria whispered as she swallowed more of the water.

"Good luck to Coulson stopping him, not that I can see him doing that. Hunter will be here, if we don't figure a way out on our own, and hopefully he'll get Bobbi involved too, which if they're fighting might make the torture seem mild by comparison." Victoria needed food, Isabelle knew, but if her jaw was broken…. "What about the bread? Any chance you might be able to eat a little of it?"

"Too hard." Victoria murmured.

"Okay." No food, that wasn't good, but you could go way longer without food than you could without water, Isabelle knew. Better to focus on getting as much of the water as she could into her for the moment. "Take another sip, okay? I just hope Hunter doesn't call my sister to let her know what's going on when he figures out I'm missing. Although, I guess if Jane gets a call from him and he's talking about losing me, she's going to figure he's drunk and I've been abandoned in a bar some place, which is probably going to get me months of her pointing out how embarrassing my friends are."

"You have a sister?" Victoria asked as she swallowed more water, finishing the packet.

"Younger. It's just the two of us now, and Jane's sick. Breast cancer. Which means I really need to get to working on a plan to get us out of here before Hunter does something stupid like calling her and letting her know that he's managed to misplace me." She really hoped that Hunter would use some common sense for a change and wouldn't alert Jane about this. She didn't need the worry right now, even though the worry was probably going to be more about her big sister's strange choices for friends than anything else. "Do you have anymore water?"

"No."

How much water did it feel like the packet that had been left for her had held? Six or eight ounces at the most. Not good, but there was nothing else she could do for the moment. "Okay, why don't you just try to rest a little, okay? You just rest and I'll see about what I can come up with for getting us out of here."

"Talk to me?"

"Okay." What could she talk about to try to get Victoria's spirits up? "Want to hear about the mess Hunter made in Budapest?" Hunter disasters, those were always good for a laugh.

"Budapest. I think Shield's banned from Budapest." 

"Hunter might be too. And you know, what's worse, is that the job that we were there for isn't what caused the disaster. Hunter tried his hand at throwing together dinner, and the next thing I know there are flames and explosions everywhere. And even worse, I had to actually try to eat what he made afterwards. It's going to be okay, Vic. Just rest. I'll keep talking as long as you want me to."


	4. Chapter 4

Isabelle tensed at the sound of the approaching footsteps, cringing as she heard them enter Victoria's cell. Were they taking her for interrogation again? As much pain as Victoria had been in when she had finally drifted off to sleep, Isabelle was seriously afraid of what another interrogation session might do to her. She heard the cell door being opened and footsteps entering, but nothing from Victoria, like she was being forced to her feet or being dragged out, and she felt a bit of tension leave her as the footsteps retreated after a minute and she heard the door slam shut again.

Then the footsteps where coming towards her door and she quickly debated what to do. No weapons handy, and even though what they had done to her the last time was nowhere near as bad as her first session, her arm still throbbed and and she felt way too uncertain of her ability to use the remaining half of her forearm to risk trying to take the guard by surprise. She pressed herself against the rear of the cell as the door came open, the sudden bright light from the hallway almost blinding her. The guard had a gun, and Isabelle willed her eyes to adjust to the light so she could take in details, Maybe not now, but there would be another, better chance and she had to be ready. He didn't speak to her, just put down more of the foil packets while holding the gun pointed at her heart, and then backed out and slammed the door shut once more.

As soon as he was gone, Isabelle moved forward and examined what he had left, all the while thinking about what she had seen, and how it could possibly be used to get herself and Victoria out of there. When he had put the packets down, the gun had wavered just a bit. If she could work out a way to take him by surprise in those few seconds, she just might have a chance to get the two of them out of there. First she had to make sure she had the strength to take advantage of that chance when it presented itself again, and to make sure that Victoria would have the strength she needed as well.

"Victoria?" She called to the other woman as she examined the packets. Another wrap and four packets of water. Better than what they had left her, was it the night before or maybe longer? It was way too easy to loose track of time looked in the dark like they were. "Vic?"

"Isabelle?" Victoria tried to sit up a bit, and finally was able to lean herself against the wall, although with how her muscles shook from the effort, she felt like she would slide back down it at any moment.

"Vic, they brought more food and water. Did they bring anything for you too?"

Victoria carefully felt around with her undamaged arm. She quickly found the packet containing the bread and cheese, still unopened. and then found the four packets of water. "Water." She opened the packet without Isabelle having to urge her, and pressed it to her lips, quickly swallowing almost half. Suddenly, her head was swimming, and it was all she could do not to drop and spill the valuable liquid as she slid down the wall to the floor. "Dizzy." She stammered.

Dizzy." Not good. Dizziness wasn't good. "We need to get some food into you, Vic. You still have that bread, right? Think you can take a bite of it for me?"

"Hard." The pain in her jaw was a tiny bit less, giving her some hope that maybe it wasn't broken, but was just badly bruised, but still she couldn't imagine biting into the bread and trying to chew.

"Okay. Okay." Isabelle thought for a moment about what to do. Victoria absolutely needed to get food into her system. "Do you think you can break off a piece and hold it in your mouth until it gets soft enough to swallow? Can you try that?"

"Maybe." Victoria carefully reached out with her good hand, using the bad one to keep the water from spilling and opened the packet of food. She fumbled for a moment before breaking off a piece and slipping it into her mouth. It was hard, harder than usual, and she brought the water to her lips again in hopes of helping it to soften enough for swallowing, "Do you have something?" She murmured around the hopefully softening bite of bread.

"Yeah." Isabelle hated the thought of eating what she had when poor Victoria was struggling to eat a bite of bread, but she made herself open the wrap and take bite anyway. It was much the same as the last one, meat, beans, some sort of vegetables, a terrible taste, but she quickly chewed swallowed and started on another bite. If she wanted to get them out of there, she couldn't hold back on eating out of guilt. She needed the protein and she needed to keep her strength up. "Do you think you can try to swallow yet?"

It felt like the bread would stick in her throat, but somehow Victoria got it down, coughing and having to take another gulp of the water to keep it down.

"Vic? You okay?" Isabelle called to her.

"Not as soft as I hoped. Talk to me?" Victoria forced herself to break off another big of the bread and put it in her mouth. She knew that Isabelle was right and she needed the food, but it was so hard, and she could feel the tiny bite of bread she had swallowed lying in her stomach like lead.

"Okay." Isabelle took another bite of the wrap as she thought about what would be the best topic for getting Victoria's spirits up. "When we get out of here, would you like to go to visit my sister with me?"

"You want to take me home?" Victoria would have laughed at the thought that someone was actually inviting her home to meet their family if she didn't think she would either choke or pass out from the pain it would cause.

"I think Jane might like to see that I've managed to make a normal friend for a change. Not that she doesn't love Hunter but still…. It would be nice for her if I brought brought someone normal home for a change." Isabelle finished the wrap and started on one of the packets of water. Could she allow herself more than one of the water packets? She wasn't sure. If they had brought extras, did it mean they weren't going to have more food or water brought to them for awhile? She probably needed to conserve what she had, but at the same time she couldn't risk dehydration, and Victoria definitely couldn't. "Vic, how are you doing on the bread?" Just bread. She didn't want to imagine the condition that Victoria had to be in if that was all she had been getting the entire time she had been a prisoner.

Victoria forced herself to swallow and then break off another bite. "It's working slowly." She called. She drank more of the water, emptying the first packet and debated if she should risk opening a second one. Who knows when their captors would be back with more, but water was probably the only way she was going to get the food down. She would just have to risk it.

"Good. Just take it slow. It's going to be okay, Vic, I promise. Do you have any family that to go see when we get out of here?"

"Mother. Grandma and Grandpa. Aunt Effie and Aunt Winnie. You would like them, I think." Victoria found herself smiling slightly as she thought about her family, although the realization that Coulson thought she was dead dulled those happy thoughts slightly. Had he contacted her family and told them? She hoped not. She couldn't stand the thought of them being put through that heartbreak. "Aunt Effie and Aunt Winnie have a sex shop. Best erotic baked goods around."

"They sound fun, and I could definitely go for something baked, erotic or not.." Isabelle said with a chuckle.

"Do you know if Coulson told them? Told them that he thought I was dead?" Victoria swallowed, almost choking on the fear that was suddenly in her throat at the thought of her family suffering.

"I'm not sure. I know he took what happened to you pretty bad." Isabelle told her. "He thought he should have figured out that Ward was a traitor before he did."

"Wish I had figured it out. Wish I had shot Garrett at the HUB and saved us all a lot of trouble." She broke off more of the bread and a little cheese this time, knowing she needed to get something besides bread into her stomach if she could at all. "If you get out and I don't, will you find my family for me? Let them know I loved them?"

"Vic…." What could she say to that request? "We're getting out of here together, I promise. We're getting out of here together, and then how about we go spend time with both of our families? I'm serious about wanting you to meet Jane. If Hunter's called her for some insane reason and let her know he's misplaced me, I think I'm going to need to produce one normal friend to calm her down."

"I'd like that." Victoria said. The cheese wasn't softening as easily as the bread did, and she forced herself to gently chew a little bit, almost sobbing from the resulting pain. "Come with me to see my family too?"

"Definitely. We'll probably have to make sure that Hunter doesn't tag along if we visit your aunts and the sex shop. I swear, he's not old enough to be allowed in a place like that." Isabelle finished the water and thought for a moment before she started to gently flex what remained of her injured arm. Pain shot up it at the movement, but she gritted her teeth and continued anyway. She would need all of the strength she could get if they were going to get out of here, and she would need to learn how to fight through this fresh, new pain. "It's going to be okay, Vic. I promise. We're going to get out of here, and we're going to go home."


	5. Chapter 5

Isabelle had lost track of time. It was easy to do with how they were locked up, with only irregularly timed meals and torture sessions to mark the passage of time. Weeks, maybe a month. She had the feeling it had been at least that long. Weeks. Where in the world was Hunter? Surely that had been enough time for him to figure out that she wasn't where she should be, a captive of Glenn Talbot. Why was it taking him so long to mount some sort of rescue.

No, she pushed her annoyance with him away, reminding herself that knowing she wasn't where she should be was one thing, finding her was an entirely different matter. And she knew Hunter, he wouldn't stop looking until he found her. Not that she was going to just sit here and wait for him to find her. She had been working to strengthen what was left of her arm, had been making herself pace and exercise as much as she could to keep her muscles strong, and had been encouraging Victoria to do the same thing, although with the other woman having suffered six months of torture already along with a distinct lack of proper food, it was a whole lot harder for her than it had been for Isabelle to get moving and focus on building strength. And the torture and exam sessions weren't helping, sapping any strength the two of them were able to build up. Victoria was asleep now, trying to recover from the latest session, so when Isabelle heard the guards at the door, she didn't try anything, although she kept her eyes open, looking for potential openings and weaknesses that she could use later as she was drug out and off to another examination. Every bit of intelligence she could gather would only help when it came time to get out of there.

 

How long had she slept? Victoria wasn't sure. Probably longer than she should have. Isabelle had encouraged her to move as much as she could, to try to regain some of the strength she had lost during those six months she had been alone, but Victoria couldn't help it. They hadn't broken anything at least during their last session with her, but that didn't mean they hadn't left her in agony, and at least if she was sleeping it was a few minutes she wasn't in pain. And surely not being in pain for at least a little while would be good as far as rebuilding her strength. At least she hoped it would because she needed that so very badly, to rest and not to hurt, for at least a little while.

How long had she slept? Victoria thought about it again. She actually felt just a bit better, the pain not nearly as bad as she moved, so it had to have been awhile.

Before she could think about it longer, or could call out to Isabelle, she heard footsteps in the corridor outside of their cells, and a moment later, the door next to her opened, just for long enough for Isabelle to be drug inside before it slammed shut again.

"Isabelle?" Victoria called to her as soon as she was sure that they were alone. "Isabelle? Izzy?" Fear washed over her at the sound she was hearing from the next cell, a gasping, crying noise. What had they done to her friend? "Izzy, I'm here! I'm right here, okay? What happened? Izzy?"

"I don't know." Isabelle somehow forced the words out. It felt like everything was on fire, every nerve in her body stripped raw. "How long? How long was I gone?"

"I'm not sure." Victoria said. How long had Isabelle been suffering while she had been sleeping peacefully, or at least pain free? Guilt washed over her. "Izzy? What can I do?"

"Talk to me?" Isabelle called to her. A voice, that's what she needed right now. Something to focus on. What had they done to here that had left her like this, like she had lava in he veins instead of blood? It hurt so much and she was afraid if she didn't have something to focus on that she would pass out and never wake up.

"Okay. Talk." Isabelle had been willing to talk to her often enough, when she desperately needed to hear the sound of another person's voice. The least she could do was to return the favor. "Is there anything you want to hear about?"

"Your aunts. Are they…."

"Are they lesbian? Oh, yes." Victoria said. "They'll like you when you meet them. You'll like them. They've been together at least fifty years. When I was a little girl they always used to tell me that I would be the flower girl when they could finally get married. I'll have to show you the pictures sometime if you promise not to tell Coulson or any of the people on his team. A thirty-something flower girl, I can imagine what some of them would have to say about that." She smiled as she remembered it, and it felt good to have that happy memory to focus on. "You'll like them when you meet them, I promise."

"So you had someone to talk to when you knew you were…." Talk, even though all she wanted to do was pass out, Isabelle forced herself to speak in response to what Victoria was saying. Talk, stay awake. She had to somehow keep herself awake or she was terrified of what might happen.

"I always knew in a way. I guess I never really questioned it a lot because of Aunt Effie and Aunt Winnie, and my grandparents and my mother were always fine with it. I was twelve when I got my first crush, at least my first crush that I wanted to do something about. She was so pretty with this red hair, and she was in a different class so we had never talked before, so I don't know, maybe some part of me was wondering if she could have been my soulmate. When I asked my mother how to tell a girl I liked her, of course she called my aunts right away, and I think took a million photos for some reason I have yet to understand. Unfortunately, my father didn't take it nearly as well. The next thing I know, he was pulling me out of school and dumping me in this boarding school place that's one of these things where they claim to pray away the gay."

"He did what?" Anger at Victoria being treated like that almost made the pain she was in suddenly fade away. "What happened?" One of those places, she had heard stories about them and what she had heard was horrifying.

"My mom was out of town at her high school reunion when he did it. I guess he had some idea that I would be cured or something by the time she came back. Little did he know that my math teacher and Mom were in a book club together and she called to ask her where in the world her best student was. I had been there three days when she found me and hustled me off to Aunt Effie and Aunt Winnie's to finish out the school year and spend the summer while she hammered out the divorce from my father. Which worked out really well for her, because Aunt Winnie's nephew was a police detective at the time, and he was able to hook her up with a private investigator who got enough information to get her an extremely good settlement and to make sure my father wasn't able to have any sort of say with me ever again."

"Three days, though. Did they…. I've heard things about those places. Did they do anything to you?" Isabelle asked. She could feel the pain pricking at her with the initial anger fading, but what was coming back wasn't nearly as bad. That was one good thing, anyway.

"I think the worst thing that happened was seeing all of these brainwashed girls. I knew my mother would come for me, and Grandpa and Grandma and Aunt Effie and Aunt Winnie too. I knew I had people who were on my side and who weren't going to leave me there. Thinking about how long it would take them to find me, though, that scared me. I didn't want to end up like those girls, and I was afraid if I was there for too long that I would. They didn't have locks on the door, and they didn't let the new girls go anywhere unsupervised so there was no way I could hide from them until my mom could find me and get me out of there. I think it was the longest three days of my life."

"Did you ever see your father after that?"

"A few times with my mother guarding me and my aunts and grandparents glowering. High school graduation was really interesting to say the least. I hear from him maybe once a year if that now, probably because there's some sort of family trust on that side and he hasn't figured a way to cut me out, yet."

"So you were okay, then?"

"I got to spend the summer working in a sex shop, which did lead to the need for a little editing on what I did on my summer vacation, and I was scared at the time, but I knew that I had people who would help me, people all of those other girls didn't, so that was good. And my mother showed me that I deserved to be stood up for, which felt really, really good. It could have been a lot worse, I know. I looked up the place later and a couple of the girls who were there at the time I was ended up killing themselves. One crazy thing is, my father is probably the least religious person you've ever met so him sending me to a place like that was just…."

"I'm so sorry, Vic." Isabelle told her. "You didn't deserve that. My dad died when I was six, so I don't really remember him, but my mom always said that the most important thing in the world to him was for his girls to be happy. I like to think he would be happy about whoever I end up with, as long as they love me and make me happy."

"That's my mom, and my grandparents and aunts, and two grandparents and a batch of fantastic aunts and cousins probably more than outweigh one jerk of a father any day. And it wasn't all bad. I think all of my aunts' customers must have heard about what happened, so every time I turned around that summer someone was wanting to tip me even though it wasn't the kind of job you tip people for, putting erotic cookies in boxes. And the cookies were really, really good. You'll like them when you get to taste them, I promise you. The best cookies ever."

"Cookies. Cookies are very good. I could definitely go for probably a couple dozen cookies right now." Isabelle said with a sigh. She leaned back against the wall, the pain a dull all over her body, sapping her strength and making her want to fall asleep. "We'll have to make sure that Hunter doesn't find out, though, because really, I'm not sure he's old enough for a store like that." And with how long it was taking for him to find her, Isabelle wasn't sure that he deserved any cookies that he wasn't old enough for anyway. "Keep talking, Vic, please? It's helping."


	6. Chapter 6

"Izzy?" Victoria called anxiously to her friend as soon as she heard the cell door close and couldn't hear footsteps in the vicinity. Ever since whatever experiment that Hydra had done however many days ago it occurred, Isabelle had been shockingly weak. She had still forced herself somehow to move, and had encouraged Victoria to move and exercise to keep her strength up, but she had started stumbling maybe a day before based on Victoria's rather poor sense of time, and with each stumble and slip, a icy knot of fear grew inside her. Something was wrong with her friend, and here she was trapped where she couldn't do anything to help her. She had almost wanted to cry when she heard the guards coming and taking Isabelle away. If they were going to experiment on her again, Victoria was honestly terrified that she might not survive it. "Izzy? Say something, please?"

"Okay. It's okay, Vic." Isabelle called as she curled up next to the wall, her injured arm carefully cradled against her body to protect it. Cold. She was so cold. Why couldn't they at least give them a blanket or something? She knew the cold feeling was a result of the fever she was suffering from, but still, knowing she was burning up didn't make her want to curl up under a thick blanket any less.

"Izzy? What did they do?" Victoria was a little afraid to find out what had happened. She was trapped and she couldn't really help her friend, so all that knowing how bad if was would do would be to terrify her, but still, she had to know. "Izzy?"

"Arm's infected from whatever they did last. Debrided it and shot me up with antibiotics." Isabelle told her as she willed herself not to shiver. Shivering would only jar her arm, and of course Hydra couldn't have been bothered to give her painkillers along with those antibiotics.

An infection. The thought of that terrified Victoria, but she quickly tried to reassure herself. Isabelle had been taken for treatment and medication. Hydra might be torturing the two of them but they obviously were pretty concerned with keeping Isabelle alive and in somewhat decent condition. She would be okay. She had to be okay. "Izzy? What can I do?"

"Talk?" Isabelle shivered and barely bit back a moan as pain shot up her arm at the movement.

"Okay." They had talked about her life and her family. "What about your sister? What's she like?"

"The best." Isabelle said, and really that was the fist phrase that came to mind when she thought about Jane. In spite of the pain she was in, a ghost of a smile came to her lips as she thought about her little sister. "When our dad died, Jane was so young that she couldn't remember him, and then our mom had to take any job she could get for awhile to keep food on the table, so we kind of looked out for each other a lot. I hope Hunter hasn't told her anything." But she was very mu ch afraid that Hunter had been forced to tell her sister something. It had been well over a month, she was sure, that she had been here. Even when she was on an assignment, she had made it a point to find a way to talk to Jane every few days, especially since she got sick. The longest she had gone had been the first two weeks after the Iliad incident and by the time she got off the boat and she had been forced to wait until she got off the boat because Gonzalez and his people like Calderon didn't seem like the types to get her urgent need to talk to her sister, Jane had been frantic. "If Hunter had to tell her something, I hope he thought up a decent cover story. Jane doesn't need to worry right now."

"You said she was sick." Victoria said. And thinking about that, she was so sorry Isabelle was stuck in there with her, as much as she felt like she would have gone insane if not to the arrival of her new friend. "How was she doing before you ended up in here?"

"Better. I hope, anyway. She doesn't like to make me worry so I sometimes worry she doesn't tell me everything. I think she sometimes forgets who's supposed to be the big sister and who's supposed to be the little sister." Isabelle shivered again and pressed against the fall, forcing herself to bite back another moan of pain from the jarring of her arm. She couldn't take care of her sister or do anything to spare her worry right now, but she could take care of Victoria and letting her know how sick she was wouldn't do a thing to help the situation. After over six months here, Victoria needed hope, not worry. "I hope Hunter made up a good story to tell her about where I am. That doesn't involve him losing me. Because as much as Jane likes Hunter, and that should say something about her that she still likes him as many times as I've lagged him home either drunk, dripping blood, or drunk and dripping blood, she is not going to be happy if he calls her and lets her know that she's somehow managed to misplace me." Hunter, there was another thing for her to think about. Where in the world was he? As much as she kept reminding herself that him knowing she was missing wasn't the same as knowing where she was, she couldn't help but worry at the amount of time it seemed to be taking for some sort of rescue to show up. What if something had happened to him? Hunter had gotten mixed in with this Shield situation because of her. If something had happened to him, she would never forgive herself. No, don't think about that. She forced that thought away firmly. Hunter was fine and he was looking for her. And she couldn't just sit around planning on playing damsel in distress, so she had to focus on getting better and getting her strength back. "What about you? No siblings?"

"No. I thought about it, that it would be nice to have one, when I was a kid. I have a lot of cousins and of course they all have siblings so I saw the relationships all the time. After the mess with my father, a part of me was kind of glad that I didn't have one, though." Victoria had never told this to anyone before, honestly, she had never had anyone close enough to her outside of her family that she would have considered telling it to. "My mom and my aunts and my grandparents made up for how my father treated me, but after it happened, I couldn't help but wonder, what if I had had a sibling and they felt the same way that my father did about my being a lesbian? And as wonderful as my mom and Aunt Effie and Aunt Winnie and my grandparents are, I'm not sure if they would make up for a sibling hating that big a part of you. So I'm kind of glad I didn't have to find out what could have happened."

"I'll share Jane with you." Isabelle offered. "You'll like her when you meet her, I promise. She'll like you."

"I want to meet her." Victoria reassured her. "Why don't you try to rest now, alright? Hopefully the antibiotics will start to kick in soon and your arm will feel better."

"Wake me in a little bit? I don't want to sleep too long." Really, Isabelle didn't want to sleep at all, but she knew that sleep was what she needed if she was going to heal.

"I will. I promise. Just rest, Izzy. It's going to be okay." Victoria told her as she slowly drifted off to sleep. She was going to be okay. She had to be okay. Victoria didn't think she could handle it if something happened to her. She had to be okay.


	7. Chapter 7

The infection in her arm had taken a lot out of Isabelle. How long had she been ill? Long enough that she had felt the weight starting to fall off of her, despite the fact that she was being given fairly decent if horrible tasting food, and the strength she had started to build up was practically gone. The antibiotics they had given her had wrecked havoc on her system and all she had been able to do for days at the least was to rest curled against the wall, listening to Victoria's worried voice talking to her, keeping her from slipping down into the darkness that swam at the edge of her vision for so long, kept her holding on.

Victoria. They had taken her away again a short time before. How many times had they taken away while she had laid there, unable to help, three, four times? And every time when Victoria had been brought back, despite the agony that was obvious in her voice, she had been there, comforting Isabelle and talking to her, offering what support she could.

Victoria. The thought of the other woman forced her to her feet, even though her legs were shaky and so weak from what could have been weeks of disuse that she could barely stand. Hydra had had her for how long? Six months when she had first met her and it was probably eight now. And she hadn't been broken in that time, so how could Isabelle let a little infection, fever and strong reaction to antibiotics take her down?

One foot in front of the other. Even though she had to lean heavily against the wall, Isabelle ordered herself to put one foot in front of the other and start moving. She had promised Victoria they were getting out of there, that they were going to go home, and she was going to keep that promise. Home. Jane. How long had she been in here? Well over a month, more like at least two. Her sister had to know that something was going on by now. What had Hunter told her? She tried to reassure herself that Hunter would have protected Jane, would have tried to take care of her and spare her worry, but still, over two months, what sort of story could he have came up with that would have explained the lack of contact to her sister.

Over two months. It had to have been that, Isabelle knew. Over two months, where in the world was Hunter? He had to have known that she was missing by now, had to have known that Hydra had her. Where was he? She knew rationally that knowing she was a prisoner and finding her wasn't the same thing, but still over two months, where was he? She knew Hunter. She knew when he considered a person a friend he would tear the world apart for them. Where was he? A wave of fear washed over her and she had to fight to force it back. Hunter was fine. He was fine. Hunter was fine, she firmly repeated that to herself as she struggled to move. She had heard him there in the aftermath of the car crash, when she had laid there in shock, too dazed and in too much pain to even blink, let alone speak. She had heard him. He had been fine. And she had heard May. May had been there and she would have made sure Hunter got to safety even if they had been forced to leave her behind for medical attention. He was fine. But still, if he was fine, where was he? If anything had happened to him, she would never forgive herself. It was her fault he was mixed up in this mess. If anything had happened….

Before she could think about that more, or could try harder to force her worry for Hunter away, she heard the door to Victoria's cell opening. She went still, not daring to move, not wanting to make a noise to let them know she was awake and draw their attention to her. How long did she have to stand like that, not moving, not daring to twitch a muscle? Her legs were shaking and she slid down the wall, not able to hold herself up any longer as soon as she heard the cell door close and the sound of footsteps fading in the distance.

"Vic?" She called as soon as there was no more noise from the corridor outside. "Vic?"

Not words, but a choking, wet cough was the reply that she heard, and Isabelle was chilled all over. "Vic?" She called again, fear in her voice. What had they done to her? "Vic, come on, answer me, okay? Vic?"

How long did the coughing go on without a word being spoken? Deep, wet coughs that had her fearing broken ribs and punctured lungs. If she had been hurt badly, would Hydra provide Victoria with medical attention? Isabelle wasn't sure she wanted to find out the answer to that. "Vic?"

"Izzy?" Victoria finally caught her breath enough to get her name out in reply, even though speaking triggered another spell of coughing and she curled tightly into a ball. Cold, she was so cold. She felt like she was a block of ice.

"I'm here. I'm right here. What did they do?" Isabelle asked. The coughing, she didn't like that coughing at all. What had they done to her?

"Decided I was getting filthy, touching me when they're beating me to try to get information might get them dirty. Hosed me down. It feels like they used ice water." Victoria got out between coughs. Cold, she was so cold.

"Some of the water got in your lungs?" Not good. If Victoria had inhaled some of that water, it wasn't good.

"It feels like they're frozen." Victoria replied. This wasn't the first time she had been the recipient of this type of cleaning, but still, it seemed like the water was worse than it had ever been, colder and more painful, and she curled up tighter, shaking as she coughed.

"Okay. Okay." She's inhaled water, and it sounded like she was suffering from at least a degree of hypothermia. On of those wasn't good, and the two of them together was awful. What could she do to help, though? If she was in the cell with Victoria, she could hold her to get her warm and rub her back and support her in coughing up the water, but the way they were, with the wall separating them, what could she do? Isabelle hit the wall with her good hand in frustration, barely wincing at the resulting pain, the worry for Victoria was so distracting. "Okay, I don't suppose by some chance you have a blanket or anything, right?"

"Nothing." Victoria confirmed. Even the clothes she had on weren't a help, as damp as they were from being forced to be put on over dripping wet skin and hair. She shivered harder as she coughed again. "So cold."

"Okay." No blanket, or anything to get her warm with. Not good. "Vic? Do you think you can get on your feet for me? We need to see about getting you warm, and they only way I can think of that is to get you moving."

Stand up. All Victoria wanted to do was to curl into a ball. She felt like there was a ball of ice in the middle of her body and it hurt so much, she couldn't imagine having the strength to move. But at the same time, she knew Isabelle was right. She needed to get warm and what other way was there but to move? Somehow, she struggled to her feet and took a few tottering steps before she had to stop and cough.

"It's okay, Vic. You're going to be okay." Isabelle forced herself up as well, staggering along the wall, following the shaky path Victoria was taking. "Take it slow but just keep moving, okay? And keep trying to cough. We've got to get your lungs clear. It's going to be, okay, I promise. I'm right here. I'm going to walk with you. You're going to be." okay."

"You've been sick. You need to rest." Victoria protested as she took a few more shaky steps.

"I've rested way longer than I should have. If I rest anymore we're never going to get out of here. And I'm definitely ready to get out of here and go home." Isabelle told her. Her legs were shaking too, but she made herself move as Victoria did, keeping pace with her. "Vic, I'm so sorry. If not for this wall, there are a whole lot of less painful things we could do to get you warmed up."

"Are you sure? You were so sick." She coughed more, her lungs feeling like they had icicles stabbing through them. And on top of her pain, there was worry for Izzy with each step she heard her take. She had been so afraid, had been terrified that she would loose her during the worst days of the infection, when between illness and reaction to the medicine, all the other woman had been able to do was to rest and listen to her talking, with only an occasional word to let her know she was still there.

"I'm going to be fine, Vic, I promise. It's going to be fine." Isabelle told her. "I need to move, or I'm going to end up not being able to, and then how in the world are we going to get out of here? I don't know what in the world's taking Hunter so long. If I find out that he's got distracted arguing with Bobbi again…." Arguing with Bobbi. Please let Hunter have just gotten distracted by an argument with Bobbi. "It's going to be okay, Vic, I promise. Just keep moving, alright? We're going to be okay."


	8. Chapter 8

"Izzy?" Victoria called to her friend as soon as she heard the door to her cell close and the footsteps of the people dragging her in fade away. "Izzy?" It was the first time that they had came for Isabelle since the infection, and Victoria was terrified of what damage they might have done to her this time. The infection had been so bad, she had been so weak for so long, she was terrified of what effect new damage might have on her. "Izzy?" And then she was coughing, a painful cough she hadn't been able to shake since she had been hosed down with the icy water.

"Vic? It's okay. I'm okay. It's okay. Just try to relax and take slow breaths, okay?" Isabelle called to her. The cough. Victoria still had that cough. How long had it been lingering? Days? A week? It wasn't getting worse, which was a good thing, but it wasn't going away either, which was bad. "It's okay. Just focus on your breathing, okay? I'm alright and you're going to be okay. Just focus on your breathing."

"Did they hurt you?" Victoria fought, trying to do what Isabelle was reminding her of, focusing on her breathing, trying to relax and let the urge to cough fade. At this point it didn't seem like coughing was helping force any remaining fluid out of her lungs, and all it did was leave her breathless and weak. She curled against the wall, shivering and she tried to slow her breathing. Cold. She still felt so cold, at times she still felt like there was ice inside of her freezing her from the inside out.

"Apparently this is bath time for all of the prisoners." At least it seemed like Victoria was starting to catch her breath just a bit but still, Isabelle was worried. That cough wasn't good, and even if it was just irritation from the water she had inhaled and not a sign of infection waiting in the wings, it was weakening her, not being able to catch her breath due to the coughing spells, throwing up the little she had been given to eat a couple of times due to the severity. "It's okay, Vic. I'm fine." What they had done to her hadn't been nearly as bad as what had happened to Victoria. A shower room with at least lukewarm water, not hosing down with ice water, nothing like what her friend had been forced to endure, even though the Hydra guards who had been there had watched and leered, but it compared to what Victoria had gone through, she didn't think she had much of a right to complain.

"They didn't hurt you?" Victoria asked again. The coughing eased off, but her sides ached and her stomach throbbed, and it was all she could do to keep from throwing up.

"The looked more than I would like, and of course they were all men, but it could have been worse." Isabelle reassured her.

"They just looked? Didn't touch?"

"Touch? Vic, they haven't….." That was something that hadn't even crossed Isabelle's mind. The beatings and torture they had inflicted on Victoria were bad enough, but had things gone in a sexual direction as well?

No, no." Victoria quickly reassured her, realizing what Isabelle had to be thinking. "It's just looks and…. Almost touches, maybe?"

"They want to scare you that it's going to go further?"

"Probably. Shield training talks about it."

"Yeah, I remember that. I actually went through the training, before my mom got sick right before graduation, and I had to find something with a bit more control time and location wise. I'm not sure the lectures would actually help if you were in that situation, though." Izzy told her.

"If it happens, I promised myself I wouldn't scream. I wouldn't give them that satisfaction. I hope I can stick to that if it happens."

"Vic…. We're getting out of here, okay. Just keep thinking about that, okay? We're going to get out of here before anything like that can happen to either one of us." How were they getting out of there, though? That was going to be the issue. She wasn't at anywhere near fighting strength and without a weapon, and with part of her arm missing, not to mention Victoria's condition with near constant injuries, getting out was going to be a challenge to say the least. And where in the world was Hunter in all of this? Over two months she had been here, she was sure. How long could it possibly take him to find her? As much as she didn't like the notion of playing damsel in distress, she would do it if it was what it took to get her and Victoria to safety.

"Have you ever…." Was this too personal? Victoria was pretty sure it was but she felt the need to ask anyway. "Have you ever been with a man? Sexually, I mean?"

"I kissed Hunter once." Izzy told her. "We were trying to work a surveillance op, and the people we were supposed to be watching were paying a bit too much attention to us. You remember what the Academy said, about how signs of physical affection make people uncomfortable? I gave it a shot and it worked perfectly. I thought it was going to give Hunter a heart attack when I told him to kiss me, though. And Bobbi was sick for hours from laughing over the comms because of how he freaked."

"Really? From what Agent Morse has to say about him, he doesn't seem like the type that would have a problem with doing something like that." Victoria smiled slightly even as she shivered from the cold inside her.

"He might not have had a problem with kissing for a cover if it had been someone else, but Hunter's like a little brother. The look on his face the entire time, it was like he was sure that he was committing some sort of incest and then afterwards, how he was babbling about how it wasn't me and I'm perfectly kissable by someone who's female and not him…. Two months. I don't know where he is. He should be here! If something's happened to him…." Hunter was like her little brother and she had drug him into this situation. If something had happened to him, it was on her head, and she wasn't sure how she would ever forgive herself.

"It's Hydra. They hid inside Shield for 70 years without anyone knowing. They're good at hiding. Maybe he just can't find you?" As for her, Victoria had long given up hope for anyone coming to look for her, and hearing that Coulson thought she was deal pretty much ended any faint thoughts of rescue attempts.

"I hope so. If anything happens to him, though….. I drug him into this mess. He was happily in a pub somewhere in London when the entire Hydra mess went down, and then I called and drug him into things with helping Shield. If not for me, he wouldn't be involved in any of this."

"What about Agent Morse? She might have called him." Victoria suggested, wanting to make Izzy feel better.

"Maybe but I don't know." Given the situation with Gonzales, would Bobbi have been willing to risk bringing Hunter into the situation? She just couldn't see him being willing to go along with what Gonzales was planning, and really, that should have been a big sign there that she might have been making a big mistake when she agreed to do it. Something that she knew that the man she saw as her baby brother wouldn't go along with and she drug him into the middle of it anyway without giving him the information he needed to make an informed decision, what had she been thinking? "I just hope he's okay. Coulson's people are good. I know they're good." And Mack was there. Mack knew Hunter and he knew the situation with Gonzales. Surely he would keep an eye on Hunter until she could figure a way to get herself and Victoria out of there and back to Shield. so she could get them out of the disaster Gonzales' plan was sure to be. "I just hope he's okay, is all. I never really wanted a little brother. Jane was enough of a sibling for me. Then Hunter popped up and he just fit. If anything happens to him…."

"Is he anything like Agent Morse complains he is?"

"Probably sometimes." Izzy laughed slightly. "I'm not sure which sibling gives me the most trouble sometimes, him or Jane. Jane keeps forgetting who's supposed to be the oldest. When our mom got sick, she kept things quiet and tried to take care of everything and not bother me, which actually worked for about six months, until she collapsed from exhaustion, ended up in the hospital, and I had to come rushing home on emergency leave. Hunter now, you can't get him to shut up sometimes, or to think before talking, and he tries to play the mercenary who only cares about money, but when it comes to the people he considers family, there's nothing that he wouldn't do to protect them. If anything's happened to him…. If anything's happened to Jane….." No. Don't let worry and fear overwhelm her, Isabelle ordered herself, even though she could feel it beginning to. It wouldn't help her to figure a way to get out of here and back to their families where the belonged. "Okay, Vic. I'm working on memorizing the routes they've been using, and I think I can get us at least to the level where the labs are located. I figure there should be a lot of potential weapons there, and hopefully an easy way out. What about you? You've been here longer. Have you seen anything that might help with figuring out how to get out once we get out of these cells?

Planning an escape. Even as she shivered again, Victoria felt a bit of hope. "You mentioned showers. Is there maybe some sort of sewer access?" She suggested. "That might work for a way out if we can't find something better."

"That could do it. This place is old, like hundreds of years old. Don't old places usually have big drains somewhere? This is going to work. We're going to figure a way out of here, and we're going home, I promise."


	9. Chapter 9

Something had happened. Isabelle wasn't sure what exactly it was, but she could tell that something had happened. The footsteps in the hallway outside the cells were more frequent, the movements urgent. Something was definitely going on, and Isabelle knew she should be focusing on finding a way to use whatever was happening to their advantage to figure a way to escape but at the moment her thoughts were less on escape and more on Victoria. She had been drug away Isabelle wasn't sure how many before, when whatever was going on first started, and still hadn't been returned to her cell.

What were they doing to her? Time was almost impossible to keep track of, without light, but it felt like this was longer than Victoria was usually gone when she was taken away for interrogation. What were they doing to her? Something had Hydra alarmed, and an alarmed enemy was sure to be a distracted enemy. This could be their best shot at getting away, but there was no way that she was going anywhere, not without Victoria. Where was she?

Had she dozed off? She must have dozed off, Izzy realized as she jerked up from where she had been sitting, leaning against the wall. How long had she been dozing? She wasn't sure, but she did realize what had woke her, the noise of Victoria's cell being opened and what she could only assume was her friend being drug in and dumped onto the floor.

"Vic?" She had to wait until the footsteps had faded to call out for her, and then a few minutes more to make sure that they weren't going to come back. Whatever was happening had Hydra running about more frequently, making trying to talk riskier. She kept her voice as low as she could, but when there wasn't a response she called louder. "Vic?"

Nothing. There was nothing. How badly had they hurt Victoria? Isabelle felt a wave of terror wash over her. What if she was…. No, Isabelle forced that thought away, the thought that Victoria might be dead or dying. They wouldn't have gone to the trouble of bringing her back to the cell if that was the case. Not dead or dying. She couldn't be dead or dying, but how badly was she hurt? "Vic?" She called for her again, running the fingers of her remaining hand frantically along the wall separating them, hoping to feel something, some sort of a gap no matter how tiny, that there was a chance that she could enlarge. Victoria was alive. She kept repeating that to herself over and over. She was alive. But if she was seriously injured, how long could she survive without some sort of attention? "Vic? Vic, it's okay! It's going to be okay, I promise! Can you just make some sort of noise for me? Vic?"

No gaps, no openings that she could feel in the wall. What about the mortar? Was there some way that she could dig at it, and maybe work it out, even if she could just work a tiny bit out, it would be something. "Vic?" She ran her fingers along the seams between the stones of the wall as she called for her friend. Old, this building was who knows how old. Shouldn't an old building have some sort of gaps or crumbling mortar or something? "Vic?"

There was something, a faint sound from the other cell, and Isabelle felt a wave of relief was over her. "Vic?" She called for her again, and this time was rewarded with a faint whimper.

Whimpering, not good, but still, Isabelle couldn't hold back a sigh of relief. Whimpering, she was in pain, but at least she was trying to respond to her, which had to be a good sign. "Vic? It's okay. It's okay, Baby. You're going to be okay." Whimpering, in pain, hurt who knows how badly. Isabelle slammed her hand against the wall in frustration. She needed to be in there! If she was in there, if she could tend to Victoria, she could make this okay. She knew she could. And even if there wasn't much she could do as far as fixing Victoria's wounds, at least she could hold her and make her feel safe and protected. Victoria whimpered again, and she fought back tears. What could she do for her if she couldn't touch her?

No, this was no time for panic or despair. She could fix this. Maybe she couldn't get in there yet, but there was a way for her to fix this. Focus. Focus, she ordered herself. Focus and assess the situation. Moaning, Victoria was at least semi-conscious and was trying to respond to her. That was good. Moaning, she was at least able to breathe. Breathing. ABCs. That. Focus on that. Moaning, her airway was open, and she was able to breathe, but what if she slipped into unconsciousness?

"Vic? Baby?" If she could just get in there, If she could just get in there where she could see her and touch her…. Nothing, still nothing when she ran her hand along the wall, though, and she had to order herself to keep talking. "Baby, it's going to be okay, I promise you. You're going to be okay. Do you think you can get on your side for me? If you can it ought to make it easier for you to breathe. Can you do that for me, Baby?"

She hurt. The pain was overwhelming and almost completely filled her mind and body, but faintly, very faintly, Victoria heard what Izzy was telling her to do. Side. Breathing. Training. She struggled, trying to make her brain focus past the pain. Side. Put someone unconscious on their side to keep their airway open. Side. Her head was swimming, and she was afraid that slipping into unconsciousness wasn't far off. Move. Side.

"Vic? Baby?" There was another whimper and then a weak hiss of pain, along with a faint sound of movement. "Vic? Hey, that's good. That's really good. You're doing fine." ABCs. Airway and breathing were okay for now. That was good. ABCs. What was next? Circulation, bleeding. She didn't know how in the world she could assess that, though, or what in the world she would do if Victoria was bleeding. She sounded way too weak to manage putting pressure on a wound, and it wasn't like there was any material in the cells that would work for bandages. "Vic, okay, can you try to stay as still and calm as you can right now? I know you're hurting, but if you're bleeding anywhere trying to stay really calm and quiet might help. Can you do that for me, Baby?"

"Izzy?" Victoria called her name. Bleeding. Was she bleeding? The pain was so bad that she honestly couldn't tell.

"Vic?" Hearing Victoria say her name, relief almost overwhelmed her. "It's okay. I'm right here. You're going to be okay, I promise." Should she encourage her to talk or try to keep her as quiet as possible to save her strength? But she had to at least ask a few questions to find out how bad the damage was. "Vic, what did they do? Can you tell me?"

"Wanted information about Coulson." Victoria said slowly. "He did something. Hurt them somehow. Wanted information."

Coulson. Coulson had did something that hurt Hydra. Despite the situation, Izzy was suddenly smiling. If Coulson was out there still fighting against Hydra and he had done something that had alarmed their captors enough for them to damage Victoria so badly, then maybe there was a chance that a rescue for them was on the way. If a rescue was on the way, she would happily play damsel in distress at this point and let Hunter kid her for as long as he liked afterwards, just so long as they got out of there. Coulson was still fighting Hydra. The thought of that made her feel incredibly stupid for what she had been doing, going along with Gonzales. What had she been thinking? He hadn't done a thing to stop Hydra, had sat on top of important resources without doing a thing to help and what in the world had she been thinking?

"Izzy?" Victoria called for her, snapping her out of thoughts of how stupid she had been.

"I'm right here. It's okay, Vic. Hopefully whatever Coulson's up to, it's going to lead to us getting rescued. You just try to rest now, okay? If a rescue might be on the way, you're going to need to get some strength back."

"Talk to me?"

"For as long as you need me to, I promise. It's going to be okay, Vic. You're going to be okay. Just rest and try to get you're strength back. I'm right here. I'm not going to leave you."


	10. Chapter 10

Something had definitely happened. Isabelle wasn't sure what, but something had happened that had Hydra in a tizzy. She had been drug in several times for poking and prodding on her arm and poor Victoria had been taken away multiple times as well, coming back weak and battered each time.

"Vic, Baby?" She called to her. The last time Victoria had been taken away had been a few hours before, and even though they had only kept her for a short while before bringing her back to the cell, Isabelle was still worried. They might be trying to minimize the amount of damage they were doing to her, but she could tell it was still adding up. "Vic?"

"It hurts." Victoria whispered, trying to find a comfortable position on the floor, finally setting curled onto her side, legs drawn up to ease the pain in her stomach slightly. She pressed herself against the wall, letting out a hiss of pain at the movement. "It hurts."

"I know, Baby. I know. You just rest now, okay? Rest and try to get as much strength as you can back. It's going to be okay." Isabelle pulled herself to her feet as she spoke. Victoria needed to rest, but she had to force herself to get moving. With any luck, whatever Coulson was up to that had Hydra all fired up would lead to Shield showing up for a rescue hopefully sooner rather than later, and she had to be ready when that happened. She wasn't sure how yet, but she had a basic plan. When Shield came, somehow get out of the cell in the confusion, get to Victoria and get the two of them out of there and to Hunter, Bobbi or the first Shield agent she could find. She forced herself to move slowly, walking along the wall and willing herself not to stumble too much on legs that were still shaky from the last experiments that were done on her. Victoria didn't need to hear anything that might make her doubt Isabelle's ability to get them to safety at the moment.

Move, keep moving. The entire situation would be easier if she could just think of some sort of weapon to use. She had tried prying at the mortar on the walls but hadn't had any luck breaking off the smallest bit yet. Maybe the element of surprise would be enough, though. It would have to be.

"Izzy?" Victoria called to her. She could hear her moving around in her cell. Moving. She should be moving. If there was a chance for them to get out of there, she needed to get some strength back. She couldn't be weak like this and hold Isabelle back, couldn't put her in danger. Everything hurt so badly, though. "Walking?"

"A little. Just stay still, Vic. Don't try to move, okay, Baby? What did they do to you?"

"Kick. Broke at least a rib." Victoria told her. Tears stung her eyes as she spoke, her entire body throbbing. "You think Shield's coming?"

"I just hope they speed it up a little. They're doing something. It's surely just a matter of time before they get here. We've just got to be ready when they do is all. Baby, do you have any water left?" She didn't bother to ask about food. If Victoria had been kicked, and she obviously had more damage than just a broken rib to join her earlier injuries, she would never be able to eat without throwing up. "Try to take some sips if you can. You don't need to get dehydrated."

Just the thought of anything in her stomach made Victoria want to throw up but she knew Isabelle was right. She forced herself to open one of the packets of water that had been left there while she was being interrogated and took a sip. Her head swam and she had to fight the urge to throw up as she had feared would happen. "How long do you think?"

"Until they come? I don't know." How much intelligence had Bobbi been able to gather? Hopefully enough that this place was on their radar. "Soon, I hope. You just try to rest, alright? You're going to need your strength when Shield does get here."

Victoria forced herself to finish the water off before talking. "If you have the chance to get out, you should go. Go and come back for me." For the last few days, since the interrogations took on a new degree of severity and Isabelle had gotten encouraged it was because Shield was on the way, she had debated telling her to do exactly that. The thought of being alone again was terrifying, but the thought of Isabelle being slowed down and endangered because her injuries made keeping up a challenge was even more frightening. She couldn't let that happen.

"Vic…. Baby…." Isabelle stopped walking and settled on the floor, pressing herself against the wall, wanting to be as close to Victoria as she possibly could under the circumstances. "Baby, I'm not leaving you, I promise." She knew why Victoria was telling her to do it, of course, but that didn't mean that it was going to happen. "We're getting out of here and we're going home together. I want you to come home with me to meet Jane, alright? We're getting out of here together."

"I'll slow you down. I don't want to slow you down." If they tried to escape and were recaptured, what would Hydra do to them? She didn't want to be alone, but she refused to endanger Isabelle. "If you got out, you could bring help back. I'm not even sure I could walk let alone fight."

"Hopefully fighting's not going to be something we'll have to worry about. Vic, it's okay. I've got a plan. Shield comes in, I get out of this cell, which I admit is the part of the plan that still needs some work but I'll get there. I get out of the cell, I get you out and we find some safe place to hide where Hydra won't look for us, I signal Hunter where we are, and we go home. Simple and no fighting involved. You can do that, Baby. I know you can."

"I don't want you to get hurt." It did sound like a workable plan but still,what if she slowed Isabelle down?

"Baby, it's going to be okay, I promise. Get out of the cells, hide to avoid the fighting and signal Hunter to come and get us. We'll be safe at home in no time. You'll come with me to see Jane, won't you? I don't want to think about what sort of story Hunter's cooked up to explain where I am. You'll like her. She does keep forgetting who's supposed to be the big sister in this relationship, though, so when we get there, she's probably going to try to poke both of us into bed to rest for at least a week. Does that sound good, a nice, soft bed with lots of pillows and some warm quilts, Baby?"

Any sort of bed sounded good after sleeping on the hard floor for so long, and the thought of quilts and being warm felt like some sort of wonderful dream. Then something that Isabelle had said hit her. "Baby. You called me Baby."

She had been, without even thinking about it. "Vic, I'm sorry. I won't call you that if it bothers you or anything." She had just wanted to comfort Victoria so badly, and at the moment words were the only thing she had. Had the name offended her, though?

"No, I like it." And Victoria had liked Isabelle calling her Baby, even when she it hadn't really been sinking in for her what her friend was saying. It had made her feel safe and warm and oh, so loved. Loved. Was Isabelle starting to think of her in that way? They had talked about the soulmates thing, but still…. "I just don't want you to be disappointed when you see me, is all."

"Disappointed?"

"I'm not pretty anymore. Not that some people would say I ever really was. I kind of had a scary librarian or terrifying principal thing going on before this Hydra mess. I don't think I could even manage that look anymore." Victoria told her. "Famine victim maybe. I can count ribs, the ones that they haven't managed to break, anyway. I just don't want you to be disappointed when you see me. I'm not pretty."

"Baby…. Vic, you're brave. You've made it through months here and all of the stuff that Hydra's done to you and you haven't broke. You're brave, and I'll take brave over pretty any day of the week. You're not going to be a disappointment to me, Baby, I promise you."

"I just wanted you to know I'm probably not going to look like what you're expecting." Victoria told her. If Isabelle was disappointed when she saw her, and dispute what she was saying, how could she not be, it would break her heart. "I'm not pretty. You can see ribs and bones poking out everywhere and I don't have my glasses so I can barely see. I don't want you to be disappointed."

"Baby, I won't be. I just hope you won't be disappointed with me, with part of my arm missing because I was stupid enough to touch an 084 bare handed. If anything, you should be the one who's disappointed, having to rely on someone who would make a rookie mistake like that. It's going to be okay, Baby, I promise."

"I just don't want to disappoint you."

"You won't. You're brave and you've got the most beautiful voice I've ever heard. As for the starved look, you're not the only one that's got that look going on. It's going to be okay, Vic. Don't worry right now, Baby, okay? You just rest and try to get your strength back so we can get out of here. I promise, Baby, it's going to be okay."


	11. Chapter 11

"Izzy?" Victoria called for her friend as soon as she heard the door of the cell close and the footsteps in the hallway outside fade away. "Izzy?" Worry was clear in her voice as she called for her. Victoria had been caught in an awful place of pain, in too much pain to sleep but not enough to pass out, so she was all too aware of the length of time that Isabelle had been gone. What had they done to her? "Izzy?"

"I'm here." Isabelle forced herself to reply, not wanting to cause Victoria any worry at the moment, even as a wave of terror washed over her. She tried once more, tried to will her damaged arm to move, but there was nothing. She couldn't so much as twitch it. "I'm here." She called to Victoria again even as alarm washed over her. She couldn't move her arm. Even though it was damaged and half of her forearm was missing, limiting her use of it, the fact that now she seemed to have no use of it at all terrified her. Victoria was trusting her and counting on her. Getting them out of there with a damaged arm was one thing, but getting them out of there with a completely useless arm? What were they going to do?

"Izzy, what did they do to you?" Victoria asked her. Something was wrong. She could tell that something was wrong. How much damage had they done to her? She had been gone for so long, probably half a day, although Victoria didn't really trust her sense of time anymore. How much damage had they managed to do? It didn't sound like Isabelle was in agony, but what had they done? "Izzy, I know something's wrong. What did they do?"

"My arm." Isabelle didn't want to tell her. Victoria had somehow made it through months of imprisonment and torture alone. Isabelle didn't want to tell her anything that might take hope away from her, but she needed to know what they might be dealing with. Better to tell her now than to risk endangering her later from not knowing when they had a chance to get out of there. "Don't know what they did, but I can't move my bad arm at all."

"You can't move it? Okay. Okay." Victoria could hear the worry in Isabelle's voice and even though she didn't say anything she knew what she had to be thinking, how would having an immobile arm complicate their getting out of there when they had a shot.

"Vic, I'm sorry." Isabelle told her as she once more tried to force her arm to move and failed. She had promised that she was going to get them out of there and they were going to go home. How would she manage that with a useless arm? She could, she knew, but still, a useless arm was a complication that they didn't need right now.

"Izzy, it's okay. It's going to be okay. Exactly what did they do to your arm this time?"

"Strapped me down and poked and prodded it for what felt like forever." Isabelle told her with a wince. "Nothing they hadn't done before but I can't move it at all now."

"Can you feel it, though?" Victoria asked her. Strapped down. Please let what she was thinking might be wrong be correct.

"Definitely." Isabelle said and then what Victoria had asked hit her. Feeling. She still had feeling in her arm. "You think…."

"It might have been how they had you strapped down. It could have strained it or something. Maybe. Hopefully. Why don't you try to lie down and let it rest a little, see if it gets better?"

"Lying down would be a whole lot more appealing if there were blankets." Isabelle said, but she settled down on the ground anyway, curled next to the wall, her arm pressed protectively against her body. Hopefully Victoria was right and whatever was wrong with her arm would get better and quickly. Something was definitely going on, and they needed to be ready to take advantage of the situation. "I might have a few ideas for places we can hide when Shield gets here." That, she ordered herself to focus on that, to stop thinking about her arm and to stop trying to move it every five seconds. If it was strained or pulled, that wouldn't do any good and could make things worse. 

"You definitely think they're coming?" Victoria asked her. She so wanted to believe that help was on the way but it had been so long, it was sometimes hard for her to imagine the torture ending and being able to go home.

"I heard them say something else about Coulson. It sounded like he was making some sort of major move against Hydra." Izzy told her. And again as she talked she silently berated herself. What had she been thinking, going along with Gonzales? At least Coulson was trying to do something against Hydra while Gonzales and company besides her, Bobbi and Mack, hid out on a cloaked helicarrier. Why in the world had she listened to him and gone along with his plan? When Hunter found out about it, he was never going to let her hear the end of it, and really, she knew she deserved it. What had she been thinking?

"How long do you think?"

"I wish I knew. Whatever happened, it sounds like it had to be something major, so hopefully soon." Isabelle was fairly sure that whatever Bobbi had been doing had involved infiltrating Hydra and this seemed like a pretty important location. Hopefully she had been able to gather intelligence and get it back to Coulson so they would come sooner rather than later. "They'll be here. Even with the lack of resources, Coulson was doing a good job as director, getting Shield running again and taking on Hydra. They'll be here."

"Coulson's director?" Victoria asked. "What about Maria Hill?"

"I heard she went to work for Stark."

"She's working for Stark? You know, there was a running bet on when she was going to loose her mind. I wonder who won that?" Maria was with Stark. Felix was injured. How had Coulson ended up as director? Being the highest ranking agent who wasn't a prisoner, in the hospital or insane would put him in charge, but still, she couldn't see himself declaring himself director. "Coulson's really director? He's never been interested in that."

"No, he hasn't, has he? At least from what I heard he wasn't really into climbing the ranks." Isabelle said thoughtfully. All she had ever heard about Coulson had been good, that he was in Shield to help people, not to advance himself. What did she really know about Gonzales anyway? And once again, she wondered, what in the world had she been thinking.

"Coulson's really director?" How in the world had that happened? And then something hit Victoria and a new wave of hope washed over her. "Fury's alive."

"Fury's…." Isabelle started to say something about how unlikely that idea was, but then hadn't Coulson been assumed to be dead too? Was it really so unlikely that something similar could have happened with Fury? "What makes you think that?"

"That's the only way I could see Coulson becoming director, if Fury gave it to him. Coulson would take charge of Shield if he was the only ranking agent, but he wouldn't declare himself director." Coulson had been acting strangely and in concerning ways since his return from wherever he had been after his near death, but she couldn't she that part of him having changed. If anything, considering his feelings for his team, his wanting to be in the field and not behind a desk having to make the kind of decisions Fury had been forced too had probably gotten stronger.

"Fury." What Victoria was saying made sense, and she felt foolish for not considering it. She knew how good Fury was. Why hadn't it crossed her mind that he might still be out there? Fury. So there might be a second person out there who could potentially come for them besides, Hunter, Coulson and company. She ordered her arm to move once more and was relieved when she felt the tiniest of twitches from the muscle. Two possible scenarios for a rescue now that she had been reminded of Fury. She had to be ready for either one. "We're going home, Vic. We're getting out of here and going home, I promise."


	12. Chapter 12

"Vic?" Isabelle called for her as soon as she was sure that the Hydra goons who had dumped her back in her cell were far enough away not to hear her. "Vic?" She pressed herself against the wall separating them, barely biting back a moan as the movement sent a wave of pain up her damaged arm. But the pain was good. Pain was good, she reminded herself. Pain meant that the nerves in her arm hadn't been damaged from the latest in the intensifying rounds of experiments, that when the time came that there would be a chance for her to use it to get them out of there. "Vic?" As she called, she forced herself to move what was left of her arm, fighting around the pain. She had to fight around the pain, she had to be ready when the time came to get out of there no matter what it took.

"Izzy? Your arm. They didn't hurt it again, did they?" Victoria had somehow fallen asleep, but the sound of Isabelle calling for her jolted her awake, and she called back, worry almost keeping her from feeling the pain washing through her body as she awoke.

"Nothing worse than usual. I can move it now, anyway, so that's good." Isabelle quickly reassured her. "Something major's definitely going on, though. Vic, what do you know about the Avengers?"

"Avengers? Did you somehow miss out on what happened with New York?" Victoria asked.

"I know about New York." Isabelle laughed slightly at the notion that she somehow might have missed hearing about that. "And I know about Barton and Romanov. What about the others, though? I heard them talking again, something about Coulson and then they mentioned the Avengers. It sounded like something else major might have happened."

"Avengers?" Victoria tried to force herself to focus. "You think they might be coming?" Avengers. Tony Stark. Was the torture Hydra was putting them through really so bad in comparison to what they would have to deal with if Tony Stark showed up? "This cell seems kind of comfy." 

"Are they that bad? I've heard good things about Romanov and Barton. I know Stark has issues. Hunter pointed some of them out once when he was trying to convince me how the explosion he caused could have been so much worse. I could see how Stark showing up could be a problem, but what about the others?"

"Banner's good, believe it or not. As long as you can keep him far away from Stark, that is." Victoria said after thinking about it for a moment. She hadn't worked directly with the Avengers, besides running a few operations for Barton and Romanov, and she certainly didn't share Coulson's feelings on them, but she thought she knew enough to assess them. "Banner has an abusive background, some issues with standing up for himself. Who knows what Stark could talk him into, especially if Coulson or Fury aren't there to serve as Stark's babysitters? I wouldn't be surprised if that man didn't build a army of killer robots one day."

"Okay, but Banner separated from Stark?"

"Banner separated from Stark probably should be some sort of requirement. Frankly, Stark having a babysitter at all times should be some sort of requirement. Banner's fine, though. He has the Hulk issue, obviously, but if he would show up, I would trust him."

"What about the others? Rogers? Everyone says good things about him."

"The man's jumped out of planes without a parachute and I think he either dated or wanted to date Peggy Carter. He's probably insane, but he's also probably more of a threat to himself than he is to society at large, so he's definitely better than Stark." Victoria closed her eyes for a moment, thinking about the Avengers. Was there a chance that they might show up? "Barton, Romanov, Banner, Rogers, they could work. Thor, although to be honest if I'm going to have to play damsel in distress and have an Asgardian show up, I would prefer that friend of his, Lady Sif. Did you hear about her?"

A few things, especially after we hooked up with Coulson. Think there are more women in Asgard like her?" Isabelle asked, hoping to give Victoria something pleasant to think about even if it was for just a moment.

"It might not be so bad if Thor did show up so we could ask." Victoria smiled slightly as she curled against the wall. "What did they say about the Avengers?"

"I'm not sure I caught it all but it sounded like they took out some sort of Hydra base. That has to be good, right? If they know about Hydra bases, surely sooner or later they'll have to come and deal with this one. Or Shield will. When we get out of here, what's the one food you want to have first?"

"Chocolate." Victoria said without hesitation. "Definitely chocolate. What about you?"

"Ice cream. From one of those stores where you can mix about a million things in if you want too, so it's more toppings than ice cream. Jane always insists on doing it that way. You will come with me to see her when we get out of here, won't you? I don't want to imagine what sort of story Hunter's cooked up to explain where I am. She's probably going nuts. Or she's decided that I'm nuts. Really, you need to come and meet her. She'll love you."

"I'd like that." Victoria said, smiling slightly again. "You really think help's coming?"

"It's got to be. And we've got to be ready when it gets here. This is going to be okay. Help's coming and we're going home."


End file.
